Today was day 1 of a 4 day osmosis lab. We are studying diffusion of liquids across an egg membrane. We entered initial mass and circumference data into a spreadsheet and tomorrow we will check our eggs to see what happened after spending 24hrs in vinegar. Here, Nikiah and Shania measure circumference.

We are finishing up the Herbs and Spices unit in Food, Land and You. Before the break we cooked up some eggs and other great foods using herbs and spices we learned about to add an extra zest to a usually boring egg!

Today we looked at plant cells under the microscopes - onion cells to be specific. Iodine was the stain we used to highlight the nucleus and cell wall. Tuesday's test will cover all organelles and their functions.

Cells - 7th Grade Life Science

Resources for Cell Organelle Research:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/insideacell/

http://www.cellsalive.com/cells/cell_model.htm

http://biology4kids.com/files/cell_main.html
http://school.eb.com/comptons

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Food, Land, and You

Today was pond-water exploration day. Not the best time of year to look at pond-water but we made some great discoveries, nonetheless.

The best came 9th period when AUSTIN V. brought in a sample from home. Just from looking at it with my eyes, I could tell it was loaded with Volvox. Volvox is a colony of algae cells (sometimes up to 50,000 cells) that are just visable with the naked eye. This view is under 100x magnification.

Ancestors of Volvox transitioned from single cells to form multicellular colonies at least 200 million years ago, during the Triassic period.  An estimate using DNA sequences from about 45 different species of Volvox and related species suggests that the transition from single cells to undifferentiated multicellular colonies took about 35 million years.

In the elementary school outside of Ms. King's class I noticed this cool poster on seed dispersal. Why would plants evolve mechanisms like this to move their seeds?